


tape deck

by michaelnatural (calebwidogast)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's Journal, M/M, also has a fun mention, my obligatory nightmare fic for this fandom, the deaths are flashbacks and one alternate ending in the form of a dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calebwidogast/pseuds/michaelnatural
Summary: dean’s nightmares aren’t on any specific schedule, but there’s got to be a box of regulars up there that his subconscious picks from, because it’s usually one of the same few.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	tape deck

dean’s nightmares aren’t on any specific schedule, but there’s got to be a box of regulars up there that his subconscious picks from, because it’s usually one of the same few.

sometimes they’re so clear it’s like he’s living it again.

cas’s bloodied face, his body slack on the ground and his tie tangled in dean’s fist, while dean’s heart beats so loudly in his ears he can barely think, can only see cas’s mouth move like he’s pleading. the only thing that saves him is that dean meets his eyes, as his hand is already moving and he stabs the angel blade into the ground beside him instead of through him because this is cas, but then the angel blade vibrates from the impact and if his heartbeat was loud before it’s doubled in volume now so he stands before he can do any more damage.

hellhounds tear at his legs, his chest, his neck. he’s never felt pain more acute than this, and yet somehow he has time to think that the lore never mentioned how long this would take. he feels like he’s been here a century, being pulled and shredded down to fibers, to molecules, to atoms under tooth and claw that only he can see with eyes he’s not sure how he still has. if hellhounds can make time stand still or stretch, it’s something only the damned know, and it’s not like they get back up to write about it.

chuck snaps and jack burns from the inside out. dean watches from outside himself as cas falls beside him, calling him like it’s going to do anything, like he can stop it. dean tells chuck to stop, like he can really fight god, yells it and steps forward and gets thrown back so fiercely he cracks a grave. he hits his head so hard he shouldn’t be awake but now he’s watching the life burn out of his son, so bright it’s starting to hurt dean too, but he can’t look away and he doesn’t know if that’s on chuck or if that’s on him but it doesn’t matter because jack is dead.

sometimes the tapes in his head are damaged.

sam dies in his arms over and over again as he begs him to understand it’s not that bad, to stay so he can take care of him. he fades away as dean talks and then everything cuts back so dean can watch him fall to his knees and it starts all over again and he watches and begs and watches and begs with his hands covered in sammy’s blood until he wakes.

his dad shoots a man. dean opens the heavy roadhouse door just as the gun goes off and he stands in stunned silence and his dad looks at him and his face is like nothing dean’s ever seen before, except he has, later, but this version of him, the one whose memory this is, has never seen this mix of emotions on his dad’s face before and he asks why and his dad opens his mouth and the dream catches and fuzzes away before there’s an answer.

claire snarls and sobs on the dingy couch, half werewolf and half alive and suffering, until dean can’t watch anymore and steps out. when he comes back she’s still and he freezes and the dream freezes and he’s failed her. he let her get bitten and he let her die because he could have done more, and some part of him knows this isn’t how the memory ends but in his dream it always ends here, on them standing there in shock while her body goes cold.

tonight, though, there’s a new tape in the player.

it skips, but dean knows tapes don’t skip when they’re old, and he’s never had this one before, so maybe it’s just recorded that way.

cas tells him he loves him. dean’s heart stops. the empty takes him. dean stays on the ground frozen until he aches instead of just feeling numb. he sits up and everything hits him and he sobs and he doesn’t even have the energy to hate himself for it, he just sobs. his phone rings and he ignores it and he thinks he should get a fucking grip but he doesn’t. he’s in baby and the feel of her engine rumbling should be enough to numb him back to nothing but he cracks open again and drives abandoned streets that he can barely see. he’s an hour away when he finally packs it in and puts the feelings away because if he can’t stop them he’s at least going to save them for a drink or ten in his room where no one can see. he’s in his room, finally, and chuck is alive but he’s just chuck, and now that that’s over with all dean can think about is cas, so he’s in his room and he’s well into his second six pack and when he reaches over for the next one he accidentally sweeps a bottle off the bedside table and it shatters and-

dean gasps awake. he’s halfway sitting up and his face is that gross sticky half-dry that comes from crying. he closes his eyes and shakes his head to clear it, but his breaths are still shaky.

cas mumbles something against his pillow beside him, and dean’s heart does a stupid little jump. cas sleeping is weird enough as it is, but the fact that cas is sleeping here, next to him, is never going to be something dean gets used to. except, of course, cas isn’t asleep at all- he’s blinking awake and reaching for him.

“dean?” he asks, his voice still thick with sleep. his eyes focus on him and turn concerned as he pushes himself up onto his elbow like dean has. “what’s wrong?”

dean shakes his head and hopes more than anything that cas can’t really make out how splotchy his face probably is right now. he’s too tired to lie, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“come here.” cas says and pulls gently at dean’s arm to lay him down again.

dean takes a shuddery breath. cas is back. cas is home. cas is here. he lets cas pull him close and he stops himself clinging too tightly, and then he remembers he doesn’t have to anymore, and he takes a second and then tangles his and cas’s legs and buries his face in his neck and breathes him in. he knows cas can probably feel the way he’s still shaking. he tries not to care.

cas loosens one arm from around him and brings his hand up to card through dean’s hair. he can almost hear cas puzzling it out as he wakes just slightly, working through the list of nightmares he knows the reaction to. his arm tightens around dean like it does on hellhound nights, when he needs to be held together until his mind reminds him he’s been rebuilt already.

it’s nice. he can feel cas, he’s part of his space, but he wants… he doesn’t know. it takes longer to know what he really wants when it comes to cas, because he’s so used to tucking it away deep where he doesn’t have to look at it.

he pulls away a little, just enough so he can gauge cas’s reaction because maybe that will give him some kind of idea, and then he realizes that this time it’s easy and that’s really all he wants. to look, to prove he’s there. to prove he’s real. cas has just started to fix him with that concerned look when dean frees his arms and takes his face in his hands, just to hold it.

cas blinks at him, his eyes turning mostly serious but still a little sleepy.

dean can feel him under his hands, pressed up against him, their legs tangling together. he leans in again and presses a slow, lingering kiss to cas’s lips, and he can feel that too.

“you’re real.” dean finally manages.

cas’s eyes soften in understanding. he leans in again and kisses dean’s forehead. “yes.” he kisses the corner of dean’s mouth. “we both are.”


End file.
